Be careful what you wish for...

It's been good having a student teacher. I needed the help.

That said, it did bring some new drama into my work life I'm not used to. Part of me wondered, "What if student-teaching was over?"

And then it happened: Nora didn't come back from Spring Break.

Nora had gone to Italy with her son for the Break. When it was time to return, US rules required a COVID test before flying home.

Nora's test was positive. She was double vax'd, boosted, and had no symptoms. The Italian government wanted her to quarantine in "a sketchy hotel with bad lighting and people coughing." 

Nora wasn't about that. EU rules let her fly to Romania. Nora was born there and her sister still lived there, so she decided to quarantine there. Upon arrival, she took another COVID test that came back negative. That made the first test seem a fluke, but Nora came down with a flu once she was in Romania.

Still, she hoped to get better quickly, so on Saturday she could test again to fly to the US.

Only this time, her son tested positive for COVID. 

Romania wanted a 5 day quarantine followed by 7 more days to get a certificate of recovery. That would allow them to fly home even if they tested positive (People could test positive for COVID months after having it with the current state of testing).

There were three weeks of student-teaching left when Spring Break ended. Nora would land stateside Wednesday night, April 27th, it would feel 7 hours later to her, and then she'd come in to school the next two days to finish up and say goodbye to the students.

Thankfully, the state only required 10 weeks of experience. UVA cleared her from her final observation, and she officially passed student-teaching.

That left me without help for those last three weeks, though! It was nice to be able to do whatever I wanted lesson-wise. But as I was chasing down students, catching up on grading things Nora took home, and everything else I thought, "Be careful what you wish for..."

PS - This all happened as Carrie was preparing for her own trip to Europe. She knew that Nora didn't come back the first week after Spring Break, but I didn't tell her about the continued quarantine shenanigans. I didn't want her to worry about her trip. I breathed a sigh of relief when she was cleared to come home on time and told her the story later!